


Mom, I'm Tired

by ScarTissue



Series: Class of 2013 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron) Has Abandonment Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 17:30:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17207798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarTissue/pseuds/ScarTissue
Summary: Keith had accepted a long while ago that whatever her answer was, it wouldn't be enough to balm the cracked tissue of his heart. Whatever apology Krolia might offer was too late, too little, way more than a dollar short. The hurt was too deep. Keith rubbed at his chest, the oldest of it's aches rocking away inside it. Ache a hundred miles down that all motherless children have to shout their pain into. His Momma never came back for him. His Momma had never been coming back at all.





	Mom, I'm Tired

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is a vent fic series mostly, but I highly encourage listening to Class of 2013 by Mitski for the appropriate sad boi hours ambiance. It diverts from canon at Keith's BoM trial and never gets back on course really
> 
> Also: Fuck the canon! Fuck it! Fuck!

Keith's mother is in the Castle. 

 

Shiro tries that again in his head. Maybe rephrasing it will make it sound more like sense. His Uncle's wife is in the castle. No, not quite. Tex was not the marrying type. Or the fathering, really. Sook-jin “Tex” Kogane's children's mother. His Aunt. Shiro slips back into his own mother's Texas drawl in his head.  _ That woman who flat ass dropped them kids on my brother, who, bless his heart but isn't worth the dirt on his boots.  _

 

He's been sitting here for fifteen minutes trying to make this work in his head. Keith's mother is in the castle. She is standing in the bridge, after carrying Keith in limp and fish pale, drenched in his own blood, yelling in garbled Altean for a doctor. He'd failed the trials, because Krolia - her name is  _ Krolia _ ! She has a  _ name _ ! - sniffed his blood in the air and busted the room open with her hands to pull him out, when he fell under something's sword. Which of course, is exactly why Shiro is suited up in the lion's hanger when she arrived. It's what he had been on his way to do. 

 

“Shiro?” Allura’s voice drifts in from the doorway. She looks very small, standing there in her pajamas. “Keith is stable. He didn’t even need a healing pod, really.” She pauses, and her face looks cracked open. Shiro blinks at her and back into the present. 

 

“Are you alright, Princess?”   
  


Allura blinks back at him. “Um. What do, um.” She takes in a deep breath. “What are we to do about Keith’s- about her?”

 

_ Oh right, _ Shiro thinks.  _ I’m on board a ship of teenagers with dead and missing parents. Right. Cool. This is going to go super smoothly. Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool- _

 

“Let’s go talk to her,” he forces out. “She brought Keith back to us alive, so. We owe her that. I guess.” 

 

Allura’s answering “ _ Okay _ ,” is so soft he thinks that he must have scared her. 

 

{}{}{}

 

Allura herds them all into the training room. 

 

Shiro thinks she must be worried about having Galra, even this Galra, so close to the war room or the lions. The coms are still hooked up from where they had been practicing mental bonding a few hours ago. Every so often the little screens flicker with passing thoughts- goo for dinner, earth’s sky, Keith’s body in the infirmary. It doesn’t escape Shiro’s notice that the image lingers on Lance’s screen, blood and black hair and eyes like a galaxy, before going carefully blank with no static. Lance has his bayard out, and doesn’t seem to have any inclination toward putting it away. 

 

Shiro is going to have to inquire as to what the hell is going on between those two at some point, but he kind of doesn’t want to know. 

 

Shiro turns his stare to Krolia. He means to ask “ _ How did you find us?” _ or  _ “Why were you with the Blade of Mamora?”, _ anything but what ends up coming out of his mouth. 

 

It’s like this, with he and Keith and their mostly shared childhood. Any attempt to talk about it rationally, no matter how well rehearsed in their heads, comes out desperate and hysterical. Even when they’re talking to each other. It’s trauma that hides itself until it’s already out of your mouth.

 

“Why did you leave?”

 

Krolia flinched like she had been burned by his eyes. Shiro has his mother's eyes. Tex's eyes, that the both of them got from the grandmother Shiro and Keith shared. Shiro couldn't bring himself to look away from her though, even though he knew it was unkind, at best. 

 

He did not want to be kind to this woman.

 

Krolia started quietly. “The war-”

 

"You think there isn't  _ war _ on  _ Earth _ ?" Shiro sucked in a breath through his teeth. He hadn't meant to shout. He knew everyone was standing there in shock, the paladins of Voltron struck slack jawed, but now that there was a crack in the dam he couldn't stop. He had been holding on to this for so many cold, winter lean years. "You think things were just  _ fine _ ? The place you left them in, the man you left them with?" 

 

His com was flickering to life behind him, and Shiro didn't bother to turn around or stop it. He didn't care who else was in the room. He wanted Krolia to  _ see _ . 

 

"I saw things in that house too shameful to repeat," He seethes. Shiro knew what was flashing on the screen behind him, could tell Krolia saw everything, could tell from the deep frown of her face it wasn't all new information. Memories were rushing out of him like the hot, toxic wind off of a mushroom cloud. Tex yelling at a room of stock still teenagers and a child Keith, Tex leaving every other minute for insane stretches of time, a dirty house in the middle of the desert with no food in it almost more days than not. Her eyes only widened in surprise when he remembered Tex striking a much younger Keith to the ground with a closed fist. But maybe she was only reacting to the pained noises Lance and Allura had made. "You don't even know the half of it. I bet you don't even know-"

 

"That's enough." Coran cut in with a voice like steel. His hand was heavy on Shiro's shoulder. "That's enough, son."

 

Shiro is so lost in his own mind, trying to keep that thing inside him that rears it head around words like  _ Tex _ and  _ Mom _ and  _ Keith is hurt  _ sleeping, he barely registers Coran herding him out of the room.

 

{}{}{}

 

Keith wakes up alone. 

 

Well. Not really alone. His- Krolia, Krolia is standing in the doorway, arms tight across her chest. Her face is pinched, and when they catch eyes, she seems to fall apart. The walk to the chair next to his bed is stiff and pained looking, like she’s keeping herself from running the whole way. 

 

_ Oh no _ , Keith thinks. His stomach is numb, and he can’t tell if it’s anesthesia or dread.  _ You do not get to do this to me. _

 

Krolia looked unsteady. When had he ever seen a Galra look unsteady, besides himself, now that he knew? She opened and closed her mouth dumbly before speaking with her eyes trained on his hands. 

 

"Your father told me a story," she murmured. Her voice sounded wet. "About- About a bird. The one that left its eggs in - in different nests, to protect them." Krolia sucked in a breath that moved her whole chest. "I thought- it was  _ never _ my intent to-"

 

_ Abandon us? Hurt us? Break me clean in two and never come back to sew me up? Break us all so thoroughly we never recovered, not one out of four? Not even one?  _ Keith wasn't about to actually voice any of those questions. He had accepted a long while ago that whatever her answer was, it wouldn't be enough to balm the cracked tissue of his heart. Whatever apology Krolia might offer was too late, too little, way more than a dollar short. The hurt was too deep. Keith rubbed at his chest, the oldest of it's aches rocking away inside it. Ache a hundred miles down that all motherless children have to shout their pain into. His Momma never came back for him. His Momma had never been coming back at all. 

 

Krolia had started talking again. "I thought- he said it, he said, we intended-" She broke off again to stare at his face, eyes focused and grief filled, hands clenched to show bone through the skin in her lap. If she was looking for his father, Tex wasn't there to be found. Keith was her breathing mirror. 

 

"It was never my intent," she said again. It sounded a little practiced. "For this to happen. Not to you. Not to any of you. I prayed everyday for your safety. I prayed  _ everyday _ . I left to protect those I love the most." 

 

Keith thought about that. Cuckoos and intentions. Whatever exactly Krolia had wanted out of leaving him - _ them  _ \- and the bitter knowledge Keith kept to himself, that your children could meet horrific ends no matter what lengths you took to protect them. That you could drop them on the farthest flung rock in what you knew of space, pray everyday the war that ate your life wouldn't eat them too, and come home to bones that had cracked under a foreign sun. 

 

He didn't want Krolia to know it was all for naught. He didn't want to know her at all. He wanted to scream everything in her face, and abandon her like she abandoned him.  _ Protect those I love most  _ his ass. Keith was the last living Kogane and everyone Krolia left on Earth was rotting there now, in the red dirt West Texas, unprotected. 

 

Keith wanted to do a lot of things. But for now, he really just wanted to go back to sleep.

 

"You should go," he said. His voice was so quiet he could barely hear himself. Krolia was deathly still in her little chair. "I don't-" Something hot dripped onto his hands. When had he started crying? "I don't want to see you right now." Keith squeezed his eyes shut against the memories welling up. His sister's high school uniform, that she did not live to outgrow, all the dreams she must have left behind. His brothers twin grins, though they were years apart. Each one of them pale and lean, each so carefully brave in their own ways. Each dead and gone. How Krolia only wounded him once but she left them again and again and  _ again _ . Their Momma never came back for them, not to stay. Their Momma didn't even know they were dead. 

 

Krolia still hadn't moved. “I-”

 

“You heard him.” Lance’s voice shot through the room. Keith was too tired to be surprised that he had been eavesdropping. That really wasn’t like Lance. The strange, furious look on his face wasn’t like Lance. “Get the fuck out.”

 

Keith closed his eyes. He couldn’t watch his mom walk out on him. Not even if he asked her to. 

 

“Lance, close the door” he tried to say, when her footsteps faded, but only a choked sob came out. He was just so fucking  _ tired _ . “Lance-”

 

“I got you.” Keith tried to open his eyes but they were too blurred to see anything anyway. His face was pressed into Lance’s chest. He hadn’t even felt someone crawl into bed with him, but he couldn’t bring his arms up to push Lance away. He didn’t want to enough.  His throat was scraping itself raw with the force of his crying, but Lance kept shushing him gently. “I got you. I’m not going anywhere.”

 

{}{}{}

 

Coran and Shiro watch Krolia leave from the deck above the visitor’s bay. 

 

He feels bad for losing his decorum in front of everyone. Although it’s more apt to say he freaked the hell out. Shiro knows it’s really bad from the cups of nunvil sat between he and Coran on their bench. 

 

“So,” Coran starts. “This is an interesting turn of events, isn’t it? Never a dull moment with you lot.” His voice sounds light, but the way he looks at Shiro through their reflections in the glass betrays it. “I hadn’t known you and Keith were so closely related.” 

 

“Really?” Shiro doesn’t look up Krolia’s skipper disappearing into the stars. He wonders what Keith said to her. He wonders if either of them want her to come back. “We look alike. You said all cousins do, even Alteans.”

 

“Oh of course,” Coran says, waving his hand dismissively. “But I think I misunderstand human relations, as it were. Alteans have different words for relatives by mother’s and father’s blood. Mothers matter more.” Coran peers at from the corner of his eye. “Did Keith’s father take you in, after your mother passed?” 

 

Shiro laughs humorlessly. “No,” he says. “No, my mom is alive. They all, uh. All the adults in our family worked a lot. So Keith’s older siblings were always in charge after school, and such. We all lived together, basically.” 

 

Coran is quiet for a long moment. “There are other children?”

 

Shiro picks up his cup just to have something to do with his hands. “They died. And Tex. Uh.  Keith’s dad.” He decides it might be time to take a drink. He’s earned it. “On Earth, there is... I mean. You didn’t think we were being trained as soldiers for no reason, did you?”

 

“I suppose I didn’t want to think too much on it.” Coran downs his cup in one go, and that’s his only tell. This must also be exhausting for him, to know even without Galra interference there’s still war to be found. “That must have been very hard, when you were all like siblings. I still miss my sisters to this quintant.”

 

“I’m sorry you lost them.” Shiro says. “I couldn’t imagine.” 

 

“I think you can, actually.” Coran somehow sounds kind by this. “What were they all like? If you don’t mind me asking. I’m not sure Keith is up to talking about much of anything at the moment.”

 

Shiro stares out at the stars. Starts wondering again. He’s got memories buried so deep he’s not sure he could dig them up if he tried. He’s not sure if he should try at all. 

 

The stars don’t offer him any answers back. 

 

“I don’t remember.”

**Author's Note:**

> Since we can finally admit the canon is Bad TM with impunity, we can also admit that a character with established emotional issues meeting up with the mother who abandoned him and being rather cool about it was also bad writing? Like? Really? R e a l l y


End file.
